Update (1/22/2015): LG Electronics, one of Qualcomm’s other major partners, has publicly stated that it has had no overheating problems related to Qualcomm’s 20nm SoCs. LG is planning to use the Snapdragon 810 in the upcoming Flex 2, where the new 20nm SoC reportedly radiates less heat than previous 28nm designs. This implies that either Samsung’s problem was related to other facets of the design, or that Qualcomm already fixed the issue. Qualcomm and Samsung have both refused to comment further on the rumor.

If Qualcomm had a major problem, however, it might be required to disclose it before its earnings call, in accordance with SEC rules. Since the company has not done so, this implies the issue is not material to its ongoing business.

Original article:

When device manufacturers design a cell phone, they typically do so with tight, well-defined product targets, power budgets, and specific hardware in mind. Because many companies introduce phones on a yearly cadence, it’s extremely important that upcoming SoCs arrive on-time and within specified thermal envelopes. That’s why it’s surprising to read that Samsung has reportedly dumped Qualcomm from its upcoming line of Galaxy S6 devices. Supposedly, Qualcomm’s 20nm processors just aren’t running cool enough for Samsung to fit them into the phone.

According to Bloomberg, Samsung tested the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 before rejecting the chip as thermally unsuitable. That core is a 20nm SoC with a new, DX11.2-capable GPU, H.265 encode and decode, two CPU clusters (quad-core Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53), and an integrated 20nm LTE modem.

It’s not clear what the Snapdragon 810’s problem is, but Qualcomm has been shipping 20nm modems for over a year. Claiming that the issue is a thermal problem is remarkably vague, however, and could point to issues nearly anywhere within the SoC. If the chip doesn’t throttle properly, or doesn’t switch to its “Little” block of Cortex-A53s at the appropriate times, it could easily exceed its thermal envelopes for certain tasks.

An as-yet undefined problem

The situation today neatly mirrors the problems Samsung ran into with its own Exynos hardware and the Galaxy S4. Back then, Samsung’s Exynos 5410 was supposed to be the first chip to use ARM’s big.LITTLE configuration, but critical problems with the SoC forced Samsung to adopt a Qualcomm solution for most versions of the phone. big.Little never worked properly on the Exynos 5410; Samsung later fixed the problem in hardware with the Exynos 5420.

The Exynos 5410’s issues didn’t cause a huge problem for Samsung because the company has a policy of using multiple chip suppliers and technologies within its various mobile devices. A significant problem with the Snapdragon 810, in contrast, could badly damage both Qualcomm and its various partners.

It’s also possible that Qualcomm has already fixed whatever issue Samsung identified, but couldn’t provide enough chips in time to meet its partner’s production schedule. While not ideal, problems with early production silicon are scarcely uncommon. It’s even possible that Samsung’s part switch says more about an overly-aggressive thinness or power envelope target than it does about Qualcomm’s hardware. Manufacturers continue to obsess over thinness, despite the fact that the need for a smartphone case instantly obviates any advantage of making a device thinner — and in some high-end devices, that’s become a problem. The LTE Cat 6 G3 (available in South Korea, but I’ve had occasion to test one) has a nasty tendency to overheat when used under load for any period of time.

Until we know more about the technical issues underlying this decision, it’s impossible to predict how big a problem it will be. A mass cancellation on Snapdragon 810 orders would throw the industry into turmoil and give both Intel and rival ARM manufacturers like Rockchip and MediaTek a huge opening to gain market share. A minor blip that’s already resolved in current silicon won’t cause more than a bob in the stock price.

Tagged In

I’m surprised more phones aren’t designed with an exhaust port like all other modern electronics. Having a closed environment with limited cooling is bound to run into problems as speeds and cores increase.

Maverick Guy

I was thinking the same thing for a while now.

http://ziffdavis.com/ sal cangeloso

It’s not really so much the phone, it’s the fact that you need to hold on to it. So if it’s metal, it’s going to be uncomfortably hot to hold, even if there is venting.

Mahmet Tokarev (Tajik Pride)

Making phones out of metal instead of high-quality plastic has always been a bad idea. Companies do it to appeal to gadget hipsters even though it is impractical and expensive. There is no practical reason to use metal.

johnny

Using high quality plastic will not solve the problem. The heat is there, and it needs to be spread quickly.

Very true indeed, I heard Sam’s next Galaxy S phone will be made mostly out of metal this time around. & we all know how metals conduct energy easily. Hope they can fix the issue soon.

Karly Johnston

actually the conductivity of the metal helps thermal cooling better than plastic phones. iPhone and the HTC M8 all run cooler than Samsung plastic.

Pumpkin King

Not true at all

ScoobiJohn

he has a point – if plastic was great for cooling why are computer cpu heat sinks made of metal? seems clear that metal will get the heat out of the device faster – might not be good idea though if it gets so hot that its uncomfortable to hold though

Pumpkin King

That’s as a desktop heat sink. Not the materials themselves encasing the device and trapping the heat.

ScoobiJohn

think the whole point is that metal doesn’t trap heat but conducts it rather well – plastic on the other hand is a good insulator and will trap heat – so while the shell might feel cooler on the outside if its plastic that jsut means the heat is still inside the device

Pumpkin King

Except that’s not what happens

ScoobiJohn

you’ll have to link some pretty compelling scientific study for me to believe otherwise – metal is a heat conductor – and plastic is generally a heat insulator – metal phones might feel hotter but that means nothing its the soc core temp that matters and unless you have two identical phones with the only difference being a plastic and metal outer shell, no comparison can be made

Pumpkin King

I don’t have to link anything. The metal phones contain a lot more heat and are worse with reception.
And being hotter and holding more heat within also entraps more heat from the battery and display.

ScoobiJohn

the reception i will conceed is true the rest is nonsense – metal conducts heat plastic insulates – the heat is inside the phone there for it needs to be conducted out there is no way 2 phones with exactly the same specs except for metal and plastic shell would have the cpu temps on the plastic shell being lower than the metal

Karly Johnston

it wouldn’t make sense without a fan and no one wants the added bulk of a mini heater… especially on a phone that gets wet on occasion.

Robert Littler

Since phones are passiveley cooled, the body is a heat sink. A metal or partly metal construction is ideal to dissapate heat, and a flat thin shape is optimal for this. A fan or vents is completely uneccesarry.
What would be useful are cases with good thermal design rather than an insulating slab of silicone or plastic.

The Calm Critic

To dissipate heat yes. To further encase it w/ either another metal exterior or plastic for comfortable hand operation that adds compromise there’s the dilemma right there.

Physical dimension plays a role but this “thinner and lighter for up to 2k res” trend aren’t syncing w/ current SoCs, display tech and everything else that requires the batt juice that’s another problem.

Hint:- A typical user never asked for higher res screens nor faster SoCs just for the heck of it… That’s right. You can’t throw R&D money at them then wait for results when naturally it’s the other way round.

Robert Littler

I primarily wanted a 1080p scren so it would mirror nicely on my tv, can’t see the benefit of going over 400ppi for myself, a total waste of power.

Interesting fact though, if manufactures use a metal case with a shot peened or milled finish it doubles the surface area to dissapate heat.

The Calm Critic

Meant for QHD before. FHD is more than acceptable as far as threshold goes for everything we have now. Anything higher than that I don’t know these days so called “flagship” smartphone users are out of their tree. Perhaps 4 hours of screen time tops at “researching” Jennifer Lawrence’s head to toe freckles are priority of the day rather than multi day single charged operation.

throwaway nickname 329582

Phones are supposed to be somewhat water-resistant. How often do you talk over one in the rain?

Also, phones already have an excellent liquid cooling system. During usage, the metal case is pressed against a heatsink made of meat, through which there’s a constant flow of coolant (blood). A vent for exchanging hot air wouldn’t make much of a difference in addition to that.

Agent Awesome

I saw that Qualcomm is working on Krait successor which named as “Taipan.” I hope to buy a new phone this year. My primary choices are the Galaxy S6 and HTC M9. So this means I have to think twice before buying a SD810 powered phone. The Galaxy S6 is safe because Samung has their in-house Exynos SoCs. The Galaxy S6 will have an Exynos 7420 SoC. I can trust the new Eynos series and the last year Exynos 5430 was a pretty good SoC.

It seems like Apple are the “Intel of the mobile industry” with their SOCs. Their efficiency & performance is impressive to say the least. I was shocked to see the (dual-core) A7 easily keep pace & sometimes surpass 8-core SOCs from the competition.

Past two generations have used slightly better architecture on a glorified app launcher

Maverick Guy

I did, the likes of “Anandtech.com” did analyzing & tests involving all of Apple designed SOCs after the (Samsung designed) A5 (A6, A7 etc). Each time the dual-core, lower clocked micro architectures gave rivals a good run for their money (& even surpassed them in many cases)!

All this while the competition are using high-clocked, quad, or even octa-core chips. I know Apple is well known for programming their OSes to fully take advantage of their hardware. But no amount of programming can magically give these types awesome performance numbers… all while not cheating the way Samsung did a few years back!

So we are still at square one with you needing to do a lot more understanding.

Maverick Guy

So this is what trolling looks like

Pumpkin King

You just started reading what you write? Yikes

Maverick Guy

Yep… You’re a troll indeed lol

Pumpkin King

So you contradicting me with your own close minded opinion and being called out for it. Then trying to call me a troll for it…makes me a troll?????
Yup…just another brainless hipster

sebastian giacana

its a sweet joke when zealots try to prove apple is perfect no wonder ,mostl of them are under 18 or cant get laid or wear 5 inch heels

Pumpkin King

Yup. They seemed knowledgeable at first

sebastian giacana

what normal people is gonna buy what anandtech thinks? anand now works for apple GIVE ME A BREAK!! hyper biased site. have they covered bendgate?? NO!!! cos they re on apple side

sebastian giacana

you re wrong,A7 handles 700k pixels when iphone runs video ,every frame in an android phone is about 2000k pixels in 1/24th sec .obviously iphone need less power ,its like comparing the engine of a civic with the engine of 2 ton truck, do you think a civic needs a V12 engine?.besides the load of an iphone is handled by the 3 gpu cores so dont brag.
one more time apple zealots prove they dont know a sh11t about tech

Joel Hruska

Got a link that shows the throttling on non-Iphones?

But I can answer this.

Apple sets a maximum clock speed of 1.4GHz (I think) on the A8. These other devices allow for maximum clock speeds of up to 2.5GHz. So you get a much higher burst, but then a much faster decline.

Also: Those kinds of features are set by the manufacturer. It’s Samsung / Motorola / LG who *choose* settings that burst the chip up to 2.5GHz when it can’t sustain more than about 1.1GHz under load. If Samsung wanted to, it could tell that same SoC not to run faster than 1.1GHz under any circumstances.

It’s not Snapdragon, Exynos, or MediaTek — it’s the decisions of the phone manufacturers that create those outcomes.

Maverick Guy

I’d love to see the IPC (Instruction Per Clock) of each SOC someday.

sebastian giacana

you dont need a lot of IPC when you re 33% of a TRUE HD device

Pumpkin King

They most definitely handle more than constant 1.1GHz. Though very good point.

Joel Hruska

I picked 1.1GHz out of a hat on this. I don’t recall what the constant clock is off hand.

Pumpkin King

Oh ok. Haha

mori bund

If you want a device that you can modify with a custom rom like CyanogenMod, then stay from Exynos.

johnny

That is one thing. The advantage of Qualcomm SoC is RF. Others may have same spec as Qualcomm’s, but in reality, RF stability and capability are inferior.

Karly Johnston

the advantage of QC is the Adreno GPU, it is vastly superior to Mali graphics.

Pumpkin King

The Adreno 420 only scores about 5% ish better than the Mali T760MP6 in the Exynos 5433 though. If course the Mali is also click 95MHz higher.

Pumpkin King

They exist, but are not as much in abundance.
Hopefully if Samsung goes full head on with the Exynos they release and support more details, drivers, and such.

Zunalter

Well, still excited about the 810…we will see what all the other OEMs say.

BtotheT

Excited about QC? >_>
Do you like Walmart on Facebook as well?

Joel Hruska

I’m quite fond of Qualcomm’s hardware. And Samsung’s. Intel makes a decent midrange tablet chip. And of course, Nvidia’s Shield is very capable.

I don’t see any reason *not* to like Qualcomm’s hardware, and they own ~90% of the LTE modem business no matter what.

BtotheT

They always seemed the high heat/power copy cat to me, rarely the innovator. Like a hybrid-SUV or a chevy Volt. You may say to yourself, chevy volts are good, they’re of the latest tech.. You be wrong, it’s heavy having both batteries/electric motor and gasoline engine(5,000 lbs) managing 40 miles on 16kwh while the MiEV gets 100 miles on the same. QC since it’s a microprocessor is obviously closer to it’s competition but does the minimum and undercuts price with low R&D.

Zunalter

Haha! I like my phones to go fast.

Quenepas

“big.Little never worked properly on the Exynos 5410; Samsung later fixed the problem in hardware with the Exynos 5420.”

Maybe this should read “Big.Little never worked properly…”? I mean, at the start of a sentence you should use capital letters even more if it’s a name… or maybe since the name goes like that the rule is obviated? maybe big.Little is just complete bad grammar as all names should use capital letters?

big.LITTLE dude, there is a reason behind this naming and the use of capitals.

Joel Hruska

Extremetech’s site rules do not allow the use of big.LITTLE. I got away with big.Little as a compromise.

Damon

interesting, Is there a reason why? seems the use is permissible in writings or articles so long as the proper trade mark rules are followed according to my link above.

Joel Hruska

I mean, I may have slipped it past before — I can’t claim to have exhaustively checked every story. But the rule has been to avoid the use of unnecessarily capitalization in a company or technology name unless that name is an acronym.

So: AMD is ok (Advanced Micro Devices is the name of the company). But Nvidia’s actual brand name is NVIDIA. That’s how the company’s own brand guidelines refer to it.

Each publication has its own rules about how to stylize a company or product name and sometimes corporations do get grouchy if they don’t like a publication’s rules. Sony got very grumpy when websites refused to call it the PLAYSTATION®3 and the SIXAXIS controller. This was all ten years ago, mind you, but brand folks that develop these things get grouchy when the press don’t play along.

throwaway nickname 329582

I always thought that all marketing people should be summarily executed, right after the lawyers.

</sarcasm>

BtotheT

This is good news to me, never cared for qualcomm, which is the only model they sold in the US. If they choose to sell the Exynos instead I may finally get one. I wonder though, they’re working on chips with apple, could delay and use those but I don’t see it. Pretty much to me, short of an older qualcomm substitute I’m pleased with any decision over the 810 :)

Damon

I agree, but, I may be way off base here, but i though the reason Exynos never made it to the States was due to the modems and the bands supported?

devogod

if i recall, that was with the galaxy s3. the US version had a dual core chip and the rest of the world had a quad core, i think.

BtotheT

I’m more of the opinion they give us the inferior chip because South Korea and the like are more competitive markets and that the US/EU consumer looks more at the brand and model more often than the specs. Exynos can use US LTE networks, it’s an international(working in nearly every large city on the globe, short of those in North Korea) chipset/phone.

tgrech

The reason was because of the way US cell towers work, basically it consumes much more power to keep your phone connected to a network in the US than most countries, so the US versions of phones required lower power chips to stick to the battery times Samsung wanted. I think most other manufacturers just accept that people in the US are used to having shorter battery life I guess.

bertgoz

Article error: Mediatek is not in mainland China

Joel Hruska

You’re quite right. Fixing that.

jdwii

I was like thinking it could give Nvidia a boost in market share never even thought about Intel.

Josh Starling

There was an article awhile back about how to make a graphics processor (or processor) for phones that wouldnt melt butter. It took a regular snapdragon and another (i cant find article so i dont remember what they were calling it) and put butter on the phone and put it through its paces. The snap dragon melted the butter and the unnamed one took 2-3 times the snapdragons time before it even got close to start melting the butter.

megadon

Qualcomm doesn’t make any hardware. Its that Qualcomm has wireless patents that they leverage out for naming rights for the chips. Samsung and TSM, with Global Foundries make the chips. IBM and ARM are designers of the RISC chips

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